Top 3 Thinking Strategies of Incredible Leaders
Becoming a leader doesn’t happen overnight. Instead, leadership is a process of constantly refining your tactics and absorbing input from the people you’re mentoring, coaching or supervising in order to better serve a larger mission.
But how exactly do you refine those tactics? Fear not: in the span of this podcast episode on leadership, we covered three core thinking strategies that most, if not all, great leaders share.
Note that none of these skills are about increasing revenue or profit margins directly — those are byproducts of gaining these leadership skills. These skills help you think in new ways that drive innovative results.
The three top leadership skills
1. The ability to challenge your own beliefs
The first, and arguably most important, leadership skill that all great leaders possess is the ability to challenge their own beliefs. In other words, becoming a great leader starts by reexamining what people — even ourselves — think is possible, true or correct.
In practice, this means leaders challenge themselves when they get stuck by asking why they’re stuck. “What do I believe that’s causing me to feel at an impasse?” “What are the beliefs I have about this person, situation or challenge that are stopping me from succeeding?” “Are those beliefs actually true, or am I hanging onto false pretenses?”
These are the questions great leaders ask themselves. Instead of lamenting that they hit a roadblock, great leaders get curious about their problems and try to think about new approaches that can help them overcome difficulties. Great leaders never think something is impossible; they’d rather discover that something isn’t feasible than simply believe it is.
Put simply: great leaders don’t make assumptions about themselves or others, nor do they hold their opinions above the opinions of others.
2. The ability to think differently about resources
Most leaders are familiar with some of the resources at their disposal, but becoming a great leader means seeing all the resources on the playing field. We’ve found that great leaders believe that, with some creativity, any resource can be accessible.
One of the hard truths about life is that there’s no shortage of money, talent or time. We might like to believe that we don’t have access to all the money, talent or time in the world, but that’s not necessarily a helpful belief. After all, all that belief does is reinforce in our minds that we can’t do or have something we want to do or have, right?
Why would you hold onto a belief like that?
Think of it this way. If you need money, there are places to secure money. You don’t need to be a special person to get it, either. Instead of thinking, “Who am I to try and build a big business?”, try thinking, “Why shouldn’t I try and get the funding I need to make my project a reality?”
The same goes for time and talent. You do have enough time, if you think about it — simply changing up your schedule or delegating tasks to others can help with that. As for talent, you can find it out in the marketplace, or hone it yourself.
See how it works? By thinking differently about the scarcity of resources, you can make them less scarce.
3. The ability to be very, very clear about what you want
Finally, becoming a great leader involves being extremely clear about what you want. Great leaders don’t lose track of their goals, nor do they get distracted easily. They’re very focused on the things they’ve set out to achieve, and they won’t let negative beliefs stop them from achieving those things.
This doesn’t just apply to goals. Great leaders also operate in accordance with what they want. This means great leaders always focus on what’s working well, and how to make the good even better — whether it’s in a team setting or on a solo project, great leaders focus on the possibilities and opportunities that’ll help them make progress.
Instead of focusing on what’s broken, great leaders focus on what works. Instead of focusing on what they don’t want, great leaders focus on what they do want. And instead of focusing on what they oppose, great leaders focus on what they can support.
It’s kind of like being a parent — if you’re always telling your child what not to do, they’re going to do it, right? Praising them for what they get right, however, reinforces positive behaviors. The same goes for a team you lead, as well as yourself.
Becoming a great leader starts with thinking differently
At the end of the day, becoming a great leader involves more than making tough calls or cutting input costs. To truly excel as a leader, you’ll need to use new thinking strategies to approach situations differently.
Curious about how to be a better leader? It’s basically all we think about. If you’re interested in picking up some new leadership skills, talk with one of our coaches today to learn more.